


Skinny Love

by carolinelamb



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Hannibal (TV), Hannibal (TV) RPF, Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Madancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29612943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carolinelamb/pseuds/carolinelamb
Summary: Sometimes we know how the story ends before it has taken its course. And it's still worth it. All of it.
Relationships: Hugh Dancy/Mads Mikkelsen
Comments: 22
Kudos: 48





	Skinny Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for beta'ing, [moistdrippings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moistdrippings/pseuds/moistdrippings)! You improved this so much!
> 
> * * *

_We were never here_

  


In the spring of 2004 Mads initiates a conversation. 

He is still wearing that odd asian-armour-inspired outfit because he is scheduled for another costume rehearsal in an hour.

“You are not preparing?”

Hugh Dancy looks up from his book, a dog-eared paperback copy of a Philip Roth novel, squinting into the sun.

Mads can decipher the word "Stain", printed in large, lurid lettering on the cover.

Dancy smiles, raising an inquiring eyebrow.

“Not reading about King Arthur?“ Mads clarifies, a little worried he comes across too loud, too boisterous. He gestures towards the book.

He himself has prepared with an info sheet his agent gave him a few weeks before filming and has leafed through a list of books. One of his friends printed out ‘The Book of Sir Tristram’ onto brownish recycled copy paper and handed it to him shortly before his departure. He has stuffed the sheets into his suitcase between hooded sweaters and a pair of jeans.

"I watched a movie in the hotel," he says. "The First Knight".

"Okay, you're serious about the preparation thing," Dancy says. He is eyeing Mads curiously, his head tilted.

Until now Mads has avoided speaking to Dancy alone. Somehow he is convinced Hugh Dancy is a shrewd, demanding conversationalist, with his wit mostly informed by a sense of politeness: he’d feel rude to burden his opposite with bland conversation. He is one of these people who feel obliged to be entertaining.

Mads finds considerate people stressful.

Anyway, Mads is sure, he wouldn’t understand half of his self-depreciating quips. He rehearsed his lines for the audition (thankfully he doesn’t have many lines in this movie), but beyond that his English is on the crude side. He would still laugh along though, trying to make Dancy feel at ease.

He shrugs and does not mention the copied sheets of verse in his hotel room but searches his mind for another topic to ask Dancy about. It is bewildering that he feels this tension, this strange desire to make him want to engage with him.

Dancy puts his book down on the table, and turns his entire body towards him, an unspoken invitation to continue. He moves quickly, as if he has waited for Mads to address him.

So polite.

"I’ve been to the pub with Keira, Ian, Clive and a few guys from the crew, so I guess I’m done with my field research," he says. He is looking with curious interest at Mads, his head still tilted.

Mads is rarely as self-conscious as he is now. He chalks it down to too much coffee, a wild night yesterday that lasted until the late morning hours, the glaring sun exacerbating his hangover. He can feel the heat on his exposed neck and sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip, on his back under the costume.

Dancy is speaking about Philip Roth now. Why? Oh, right, Mads asked him what he’s reading. He takes joy in describing him so that’s good. "Unapologetically filthy," he says, "merciless, brutal." He uses his words like a painter using bold colours. 

Mads blinks, sipping his coffee.

Around them the crew lays tracks for the next take.

Dancy makes clever jokes, almost as if to impress him. Mads doesn’t understand everything he says but he feels a lightness in his heart when looking at him. He wants Dancy to like him, so he inserts a lot of jokes into his responses. Every time Dancy laughs, Mads feels a weird relief.

Dancy speaks about narratives, different points of views, about morale, the fascination, the function of the amoral.

Mads just nods along.

“So you’ve read this book before?“

He points at the Philip Roth novel lying on the table.

Dancy shrugs.

“More than once. There’s always something new to discover; some books keep their secrets, the stories behind their stories. You need to lure them out,“ he says with the enthusiasm of someone who has not yet discovered much of the world, but then he smoothly moves on to another topic, making another joke, as if to distract Mads from the fact he said something that made him look terribly young.

  


_Cut out all the ropes and let me fall_

  


Whenever they meet, they’re both filled with a nervous energy, bordering on anxiousness. It's invigorating and exciting and scary, and wonderful.

Hugh’s cheeks are flushed, his eyes are always slightly widened and he moistens his lips a lot with the pink tip of his tongue.

Mads often sticks his hands into the pockets of his pants, pulling his shoulders up, to ease the tension sitting in his chest.

Hugh has this way of interrupting himself all the time. He hedges almost everything he says, inserts qualifiers.

“I think…”

“Perhaps…”

“I’m not so sure but..”

Mads only blinks lazily, listening, never using Hugh’s artful pauses to insinuate his own contributions.

Hugh often leans close to him, lays his palm onto his arm. At times he leaves it there, as if he has forgotten.

Mads observes this, Hugh’s way of being sly. He has noticed at some point that Hugh detests advertising his desires, hides his evasiveness behind self-depreciation.

So English, the American friends say.

Mads shrugs, pretends to not understand.

He does see how Hugh never chases the people he sets his eyes on—he sings his siren song and waits until they come to him. Mads doesn't like this. He thinks it’s insincere. It's cowardice dressed up as politeness. Only men who already plan their escapes move like this through life: with an apologetic smile on their lips, ready to tiptoe out of the hotel room without waking you, pretending to do what they do out of consideration for you.

In the end it's just another way of dominance, a way to force people to play the game your way.

He does, however, listen carefully to Hugh’s siren song.

One of these nights, it's Mads who reaches out and puts his hand onto Hugh’s forearm but not in a bold way. More like a question, a request for permission. Just laying two fingers onto Hugh’s milk-skinned wrist, to feel his pulse underneath. It’s a quiet, regular thrum. 

Hugh does not shake off his touch, simply smiles.

  


_And I told you to be fine_

  


They pour each other’s drinks.

They make each other drunk, fully aware of what they are doing. They get drunk on each other’s company. 

As the nights turn cobalt blue, their speech gets tired, slurred. Hugh opines on random topics, writers and books, movies he watched, political correctness, the terror of centrism, the damage of good intentions, the tyranny of the middle-class, he ponders his own privilege.

Mads joins in the conversation when he can, hums approvingly, but refrains from talking too much.

Whenever Hugh smiles, he smiles too, he cannot help it.

He feels his heart beat in the palms of his hands.

They have reached a precarious balance, and Mads knows he only needs to fill the silence between them with the noise of his chatter to keep it that way.

They could be friends, the way men are friends. There is a script for that. They could stay safe.

Mads does not want to ask blunt questions or openly acknowledge the state of their affair. He is afraid to reveal a side of himself he doesn’t want Hugh to see.

Hugh speaks a lot about love between men in his conversations but in inconclusive, impersonal terms. Mads often cannot tell if he speaks of personal experience or simply in a general way. He often brings up the books he reads, and many of them seem to be accounts of complicated, emotional experiences that happen to take place between gay men. Hugh’s literary choices must hint at his own experiences, no? Something in him must recognise the ever present leitmotifs of these books: repressed, unfulfilled desires and longing. Sometimes he worries about the recurring theme of self destruction and tragedy he finds in them.

It chagrins him at times how he finds himself obsessively trying to decode Hugh's words, like an anxious lover. One of the rules Mads goes by, which he advertises often, is, that he doesn’t try to read other people’s underlying intentions and messages. Either they tell him who they are or they don’t. He often tells people how he dislikes artifice.

But with Hugh, Mads often thinks about the things he tells him. People like Hugh always speak in code. Maybe, Mads suspects, they judge people according to how fast they can decode them. They drop their cryptic soundbites, then wait to see how long it takes the other to understand the real meaning, the actual joke.

Mads assumes it has somehow to do with Hugh’s schooling: He knows Hugh has been to Oxford—he once told him so himself in a self-effacing tone. Maybe that's where they learn to construct their personalities in such a perfidious way. Appearing outwardly accessible, but hiding behind clever sentences.

None of them speaks of that thing growing in those moments of eloquent silences, nourished by casual, yet shy touches, between them: The one time Mads put his hand over Hugh's slim fingers and did not withdraw them or the other time when Mads leaned his head back and came to rest on Hugh's shoulder. (Instead of moving away, Hugh shifted, so Mads' could feel his breath on the skin behind his ear.)

They are both careful but the way Hugh smiles at him has changed. 

Once he says, out of nowhere, how people's careless _I love you's_ can leave devastation in their trails.  


He swallows, and Mads is momentarily mesmerised at his Adam's apple moving.

"I don't want to derail," Hugh says hesitantly, then looks at him. 

One day, one of them might have to cut their ties. This happens in their industry. People are not cruel by choice, but sometimes it is easier to leave things behind without looking back.

Mads understands this very well. 

Ordinary people move like pawns on a chessboard, slowly, in small steps, weighed down by their responsibilities, tethered by their bonds.

But Mads and Hugh, they are no ordinary people.

They are both something akin to bishops and knights. They sometimes need to move swiftly across the chessboard, take their chances. There is no use in making empty promises.

Mads understands.

  


_And in the morning, I'll be with you_

  


They send each other text messages, when they are not in the same country.

Mads doesn’t remember how it began, the texting. First it was very perfunctory. The way men text: short telegram style messages, informing each other of coordinates; the when and where of meetings, not much more.

One of them (Hugh started it, Mads thinks) begins to insert little jokes into the messages, and then the other responds with a joke too. Initially he takes care to not respond too soon though, to not appear too eager. 

But he always responds.

At some point, Mads activates push notifications on his phone for Hugh's messages only, assigns a special notification sound to them.

The intervals become shorter and shorter, until finally they reply instantly to each other’s texts.

 _Come to Denmark, let’s make movies together,_ Mads often urges in jest, as he tells himself, but who knows?

 _You come to London, you can stay at my flat and we’ll get a gig at my local theatre_ , Hugh texts back.

They make a hundred plans, and let them all fall apart, content with their simple banter.

Or so Mads thinks.

Then one day Martha calls him, just as a parcel from Hugh arrives, containing a copy of a paperback book that has "Red Dragon" printed on the red cover.

A note falls out between the pages, onto the floor. Mads picks it up.

"Say yes!" it just says in Hugh's handwriting, no signature, no date. 

He folds the note and slips it into the pockets of his track pants.

Outside of his house, children are laughing, and he peers out into the sunlight, looking at them chasing each other.

He thinks to himself, they have both been at the edge of the brink for too long, waiting for the other to take the jump. They have both been waiting for the other to name the thing taking up space in their hearts. Maybe they're waiting until it grows a little stronger.

The next day Bryan Fuller calls.

  


_And I told you to be kind_

  


Looking back, Mads realises, the following three years are a single summer, despite the chilling, long winter months they spend in Toronto, bundled up in hooded Canada Goose anoraks, huddling around space heaters.

Maybe there will never be another summer like this where they can snatch whole days and nights, pretending to be other people with simpler lives.

Mads sometimes playfully daydreams of moving to the States for good. If the show is successful, he might get more roles in Hollywood. Hugh speaks about going to LA himself but more as a joke. 

"I feel Hollywood actors who refuse to live in LA, are kind of denying they're part of the industry. I mean at this point I might as well admit who I am."

Mads laughs because Hugh laughs.

"Seriously, you should come here. Once you're here, it will be a lot easier to get the work you want. Not only the work they want to give you."

"How about I move into the flat directly opposite yours. We could be neighbours."

"You will love New York, you'll never be at home!"

"If you come across an empty flat, let me know!"

"I will!" 

They never mean any of it really. It’s just nice to imagine for a few moments they could.

At a party of Hugh’s theatre friends, they both get drunk, and instead of staying in the overcrowded living room, they venture up to the cool roof terrace. The host, Katherine, and her friends are up there as well, sitting on yellow velvet cushions and they chit chat, passing a joint between each other. One of the friends—Josh?—offers it to Mads, and Mads inhales the sweet smoke, blows it into the purple night, taking in the stars.

Hugh, heavy with wine, gently lays his head on Mads’ shoulder and for a moment his heart misses a beat. Hugh hums a melody and Josh sings the words to it. Mads can only make out a few words.

_… swooned ..._  
_… in a field..._  
_… Dandelion wine..._

What a sad song, Mads wonders. He takes Hugh's hand in his, just to reassure him (of what?), planning to let go immediately, but then Hugh holds on to him, still humming, still smiling. 

Shortly before christmas, after a long day of filming the whole crew is invited to Bryan's house. They cook together, then someone realises they forgot an ingredient. Was it flour? Milk? Eggs? Mads doesn't remember, but Hugh immediately offers to get it, and he and the boom operator guy—Sean, the guy who loves manatees—drive off in his car. They return an hour later, laughing and goofing off, while Mads is in the living room, slicing vegetables with Hettienne, Caroline and Bryan. Hugh comes over, cheeks ice-cold from outside and hugs both Bryan and Mads and suddenly Mads is so indescribably happy, he nearly chokes.

This too will end one day, but Mads thinks whatever happens he will have this.

All summers end eventually. And every single lover living through their summers knows this, lives in expectation of this moment.

Mads knows, they are stealing happiness away from others, they are taking what doesn't belong to them.

Nothing ever stays innocent, does it?

In his heart he knows, it is not cowardice to not want to let go.

Sometimes, accepting the inevitable is not courage.

  


_And now, all your love is wasted_

  


Another year, another city.

This August has a melancholic undertone. Even Mads, not as attuned to his emotions as others, not as much connected to his inner self like Hugh, can feel it. It's the tension before the inevitable storm, that ozone smell before lightning hits.

Time has pushed them forwards, relentlessly.

(To be anchored not in the past, not in our dreams and illusions, for just one moment though—)

Since Hugh lives in New York, Mads thinks his English lost a few of the crisp, sharp edges, has become rounder, softer, heavier. He also notices, his voice is a little deeper now, not quite the voice of the young boy he once met.

Mads thinks he tries to live in the present as much as possible, but Hugh disagrees, as he often does.

„We’re always ghosts of our past,“ he says, happy to have found a pretty string of sentences.

“I forget about this noise,” Mads says, his eyes closed, “I’m anchored in the now.”

“We can forget,“ Hugh agrees, then adds: “It doesn’t mean we really belong to ourselves.”

Mads doesn’t comment.

“Have you ever noticed how different the traffic sounds in summer?”

Mads shrugs. He traces Hugh’s ears with his tongue, closes his lips around the upper part of the pinna.

“I’m afraid,” Hugh says into the gentle darkness of the room.

“I know,” Mads says. “Don’t be.”

“That time when we met—” Hugh begins, but then stops himself.

“What?” Mads leans on his elbows.

Hugh shakes his head, his arm thrown over his face.

“Do you like what you are doing?” he asks.

“What—acting?”

Hugh nods.

“I’m good enough at it. And at some point I had to stop dancing.”

“Does it make you happy? Is it what you want from your life? Pretending to be other people? Do you even still know who you are?”

There is urgency in Hugh’s voice and Mads asks himself what he is really asking.

“What would you do, if you could stop?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” Hugh says bitterly, “I mean, sometimes I realise how much I crave attention. How much I need to be seen. I built my life around this. Strangers I will never meet in my life, have seen me naked, seen me simulate sex acts, seen me cry. Don’t you sometimes wonder what it is we’re doing? And why?”

Mads stills him with a kiss.

“Why do people do what they do? Why do we pick our lives? We just go with the flow,” he says, “I don’t have a leitmotif in my life. I just do what I am doing as well as I possibly can, one thing after the other. That’s all I do. And it’s enough.”

“You think your life is creative chaos? Impulsive, random? You do what you want? If you look close enough you can clearly see the recurring themes in your decisions,” Hugh says, with inexplicable anger in his voice. “We’re prisoners of our routines, just like everyone else.“

Mads traces Hugh’s lips with his index finger.

“We’re no one’s prisoners,” he says, at a loss.

Then, after a pause.

“What is it you’re grieving for?”

Hugh parts his lips and sucks Mads’ finger in.

  


_And at the end of all your lies_

  


In June Mads receives Bryan's call.

"I wanted to be the first one to tell you," he says, and then Mads knows.

Their summer has come to an end.

He is in a hotel room in Berlin, looking at the water blue sky, sitting on the freshly made bed. 

He thinks, how just a few hours he ago he had called Hugh, who is living in Berlin this year, and they had spoken about their plans for autumn. He wants to tell Bryan that but says nothing.

Bryan talks a lot. Mads feels he is angry, but doesn't want to allow himself to be angry so he speaks about the future.

Other networks, other stations, they're in talks with Amazon and Netflix, this isn't the end.

Mads listens in a halfhearted manner.

What about Hugh? he wonders.

"What about him?" Bryan asks, a little baffled, and Mads realises he has asked aloud.

Before Mads can reply, Bryan already continues talking.

He's been approached by others of course, and he does a lot of theatre work, and you know there is no need to worry about Hugh, he is always so busy.

Mads hums.

"Well, that's that, I guess?" he says, and on the other end Bryan coughs.

"For now, yes," he says.

Mads remains sitting on the bed, smoking one cigarette after the other.

A few hours later Hugh arrives.

"He told you already?" he asks, as a way of greeting.

Mads nods, then lets him enter.

While he is rummaging in his fridge for a cold beer, Hugh scrutinizes a picture of them, taken in a pub a few days ago:

Mads was smoking, talking, drinking, goofing off, and Hugh had thrown his head back in laughter. The white wine had softened him already.

Hugh had thought it a fantastic joke to replicate the scene in Hannibal where Will laid his hand onto Chilton’s shoulder for Freddie Lounds’ photo. Mads can’t say he always gets all of Hugh’s jokes. 

“I look very happy,“ Hugh remarks.

“You _are_ an actor,“ Mads replies, “I’m sure you were incredibly bored the whole time.“

Hugh laughs.

He puts on obscure music, some British indie band. They feel bold as they venture out onto the balcony, sipping beer leaning on the railing, mindless of any paparazzi, watching the sun go down over Berlin.

They can hear the sound of the S-Bahn in the distance. 

“Do you regret it?”

Mads doesn’t need to ask Hugh what he means.

“No. If everything fails I go back to Denmark. And if nothing goes any longer, I retire. I’ll come to New York and be your kept mistress.”

Hugh laughs again, and Mads greedily memorises the sound of his voice.

“I’ll be sure to keep you supplied with beer and Adidas track suits.”

“Track pants turn you on.”

Hugh lays a warm hand onto Mads’ hip and caresses him, then smiles into his beer.

“Now that this is over. What will happen next?”

Mads falls silent. He can still feel Hugh's touch.

He looks at the open expanse of the sky.

“We have to tread with care,” Hugh says, fumbling with the beer bottle, picking at the corners of the label.

“We always do.”

Mads hates the tone of Hugh’s voice, the unspoken apology in it, he hates the dread creeping into his heart.

“I can’t hurt the people I love,” Hugh says hesitantly.

“Of course,” Mads says.

  


_Who will love you?_  
_Who will fight?_

  


It ends so very quietly.

The intervals between their texts grow longer. First it's a few hours. Then a few days. 

Then, when Mads texts him about his new job in America, a part in a Marvel franchise, Hugh doesn’t respond for weeks and then his reply is evasive and careful.

"Hey! Good to hear from you but I'm too busy these days! Let's try catch up in spring!"

Hugh texts him congratulations.

The message arrives late at night and Mads stares at the words on his display for a long time.

This is Hugh tiptoeing out of the room he realises.

He files away the sudden, clawing pain in his chest as something he can utilise and exploit for a future role. For a moment the air in the room seems to be too thin to breathe.

 _I have never told him,_ Mads thinks, _never said the words that truly mattered because I never thought they do and now it is too—_

Maybe it's an insincere gesture, not born out of tenderness but of hurt and grief, when Mads texts back.

"I love you," he writes. "And you loved me. Don't lie about these things. Don't be polite. This was a love story."

He looks at the message, his thumb hovering over the send button.

\- fin -

**Author's Note:**

> Title and song references are taken from Skinny Love written by Bon Iver, sung by Birdy
> 
> The song Hugh is humming on that roof terrace is Dandelion Wine by Gregory Alan Isakov


End file.
